Cooperative mechanism of transcriptional activation by a cyclic AMP-response element modulator alpha mutant containing a motif for constitutive binding to CREB-binding protein.

Cyclic AMP-response element modulator alpha (CREMalpha) is a transcription factor that is highly related to cAMP-response element-binding protein (CREB) but represses cAMP-induced gene expression from simple artificial promoters containing a cAMP-response element (CRE). CREMalpha lacks two glutamine-rich Q regions that, in CREB, are thought to be necessary for transcriptional activation. Nevertheless, protein kinase A stimulation induces CREMalpha to activate the complex native promoter in the phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) gene. To study this phenomenon in the absence of protein kinase A stimulation, we introduced a mutation into CREMalpha to allow constitutive binding to the coactivator CREB-binding protein. This mutant, CREMalpha(DIEDML), constitutively activated the PEPCK promoter. By engineering the leucine zipper regions of CREMalpha(DIEDML) and CREB(DIEDML) to direct their patterns of dimerization, we found that only CREMalpha(DIEDML) homodimers fully activated the PEPCK promoter. By using a series of deletion and block mutants of the PEPCK promoter, we found that activation by CREMalpha(DIEDML) depended on the CRE and two CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein (C/EBP) sites. A dominant negative inhibitor of C/EBP, A-C/EBP, suppressed activation by CREMalpha(DIEDML). Furthermore, a GAL4-C/EBPalpha fusion protein and CREMalpha(DIEDML) cooperatively activated a promoter containing three GAL4 sites and the PEPCK CRE. Thus, we propose that the C/EBP sites in the PEPCK promoter allow CREMalpha to activate transcription despite its lack of Q regions.